Historic mandate

Editorial

Scholar of political history and international studies, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, made history last week with his confirmation by the Senate for a second term of five years as Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). He became the first to get the nod for two terms at the helm of the highly strategic but controversial public institution, following his renomination a few weeks back by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Yakubu first came to the job in 2015, with his initial tenure expiring on November 9, 2020. In giving his candidature the nod for a second term, senators applauded the value he has added to the electoral body in particular, and the Nigerian vote system in general. Chairman of the Senate Committee on INEC that conducted Yakubu’s confirmation hearing, Senator Kabiru Gaya, while presenting its report to the chamber at plenary, said the panel found him to be a person of integrity and non-aligned to any political party, besides having the requisite educational qualification. Other members of the Senate concurred that the electoral system now has greater credibility: “Today, politicians don’t go into elections scared of whether they’ll be oppressed or not. If you are with your people and you do the needful, you can trust that you will go to the field and win your elections,” a senator noted. One remarkable feature of Yakubu’s legislative clearance was the block unanimity by senators across party lines over his neutrality as an umpire.

With the level of institutional fidelity INEC garnered under Yakubu, his approval for a second term was well deserved. One key to his achievement, perhaps, is his non-revisionist mentality and respect for institutional continuity. Contrary to a pervasive Nigerian leadership syndrome of dismantling the legacies of predecessors and starting afresh, Yakubu did not set out in 2015 to reinvent the wheel at INEC. Rather, he fully adopted acclaimed contributions of his predecessor, Professor Attahiru Jega, and built upon those achievements – thereby being enabled to gain additional mileage in building up the credibility of Nigerian elections than might have been the case if he had chosen to start his own thing all over. This should be a general lesson on respect for legacy, because progress inevitably gets arrested when successive leaders routinely return to the starting blocks for their own tenure.

Another factor that apparently worked for Yakubu is his bold adoption of technology to beef up the electoral system. From the use of biometric voter register, biometric voter cards and smart card readers for voter accreditation and authentication, as well as internal advisory e-mailing system for results collation that was inherited from the Jega leadership, INEC under Yakubu has deployed the Z-pad for facial authentication of voters and uploading polling unit results to the INEC Results Viewing (IRev) portal, which enables the public to track results announced at the polling units in real time up through collation levels, thereby enhancing vote transparency. Now, the commission aims to pilot electronic voting in the 2021 Anambra governorship poll. “We have to continue to be open and transparent in the way we continue to manage public trust. I hope in the next few years, we will consolidate to such an extent that Nigerians will be confident that their votes will count and only their votes will determine who eventually wins an election,” he told the Senate panel penultimate week.

Challenges facing Yakubu at his second coming in INEC include making the electoral commission corporately embody integrity and neutrality he was lauded to have personally shown at his Senate confirmation. This translates to institution-building: INEC needs to become reputed as a characteristically dispassionate and neutral umpire; which is where the proposed Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2020 that will compel permanent and ad hoc staff of the commission as well as security agents deployed for election duties to take an oath of neutrality might be very helpful. Then, although outside his statutory remit, history will be kinder to Yakubu if he uses his leverage to help build capacity in state electoral commissions towards conducting credible council polls. This also is an area the constitution review panel led by Deputy Senate President Ovie Omo-Agege should consider making the legal framework enabling.